A Story I Made up For My 8 Year Old

All The people who lived in the far away land were named John. That’s right every man – woman – boy – girl; the butcher, the dogcatcher all the teachers. When you went to the barber shop you said – “John, please cut my hair, and oh, don’t cut my ears.” When a kid went out to play at recess all the other kids playing there were named John. When you went to a ballgame all the players were named John too.

This became very confusing! John, John, John!

So the police chief went to see the mayor whose name was also John. He said “John” and the mayor said “what”? And the police chief said to the mayor, “this is a situation that has to stop. Something has to change; we can’t all be named John”. So the mayor called a Town Hall meeting, and all the people in the town who were of course named John came.

The Mayor called the meeting to order – he said “I would like to call this meeting to order” and all the Johns sat down.

“Does anyone have suggestions about what to do about this situation” and a man stood up and said, “John was a good enough name for my father and his father before him and I see no reason to change this tradition, tradition is good, and besides, I rather think that John is nice sounding name.” A little old lady in the back row told him to “sit down and stop making a fool of himself” she said this while poking a cane into the back of his ribs. The old lady said “John is a silly name. I don’t like it, never did, never will.”

The meeting went on for some time like this, neighbor John getting after neighbor John until a big fight broke out. The Mayor commanded the chief of police to restore order. When all the townspeople were finally back in their chairs the Mayor announced his bold plan. He instructed the Postmaster to send away for a naming book. A John in the crowd asked what a naming book was. And the mayor explained that in other lands everyone had different names. The crowd said like a chorus “they do?” and the mayor said “yes it’s true”.

So the postmaster sent for the book.

When it arrived the mayor instructed the librarian to cut each name out of the book and put each into a great big bowl. Then he had all the people line up and begin to draw names from the bowl. Joe, Mary, George etc. This went on for the rest of the evening until each name from the bowl had been picked; everyone had a new name except for the last person in line, and that’s how it is that in the far away land there is still one person with the name of John.